I would like your opinions on Microsoft Certifications.
My opinion is posted here:
http://realworldsa.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com/microsoftcertifications.htm
If you go, please take the poll to the right. I am interested because of the situation I am finding with the resume story I have in the blog.
I want to know how off base or on base the architecture community feels my opinion is.
Microsoft Certifications- Good, Bad, or Ugly?
Verbal
If my employer wants to pay for one thats fine. . . I wouldn't waste my money on them.
I find it sad that alot of people think of them as a short cut around getting a formal education. You can end up paying more for certs than a four year degree at a good university. . . and what do you have a poprietary background in a technology that could be archaic by the time you get out into the job market.
On the other hand. . . get a formal education in Math and Computer Science and learning a new technology is just a matter of picking up a manual.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, beats a formal education!
polstar
Note that Microsoft's Architect certification programs (http://www.microsoft.com/architecture/default.aspx pid=share.certification)
Are completely different from the developer certification ones
Arnon
flocke
One of my friends that prefers to stay anonymous gave me permission to post his feedback he sent to me via email:
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I’m with you on this one. I can speak from experience here. During my first year as an MCS consultant, my manager asked me to set getting certified as one of goals – so I did. A few other consultants recommended that I use Trascender practice exams to prepare for the tests – so I picked up the practice test for Windows programming with C++ and off I went. This is back in ’99 so at the time I used to live, breathe and eat ATL in C++, and I just finished a couple years worth of hardcore MFC prior to that. So I was expecting to walk all over that exam. I was shocked when I got my ass handed to me by the Transcender practice exam – I think I scored somewhere in the ballpark of 50%. There were tons of questions about installation, deployment and tools that are part of Visual Studio that may be nice for a small side project, but aren’t useful when building an enterprise application. So I brushed up on these esoteric areas, retook the practice exam, aced it and signed up for the real one. I was surprised at how similar the actual exam was to the practice test – some questions were practically verbatim, concentration of questions on things like building an installer for your ATL app. I aced the exam – but I would have gotten slapped if I hadn’t practiced with the transcender exam. Was I that much smarter when I took the exam thanks to the practice test – not really, I just brushed up on some small areas that the exam asked a bunch of questions on and then forgot it afterwards – b/c they were areas that I didn’t use in my day-to-day programming, and if I needed to accomplish such things, I opened the book and read up on it at that time. I went through a similar experience with respect to tests about database design – just learn the pattern that they want you to regurgitate and then perform. Same situation – wasn’t too hot one the first practice exam, learned the patterns they were expecting, then aced the exam. Big change in scores, but not much smarter. Plus – nowadays, they’ve got these web sites where folks just donate “braindumps” of what they recall after just taking the exam – so you don’t even have to memorize the arcane topics that are on the exams, you can memorize the questions/answers themselves…worthless.
Now, that new architect certification may be different, but that looks like the only one I see. And I can also agree that when I see lots of acronyms after person’s name I’m usually under impressed when we have a technical interview…well at least I used to be, now I don’t raise my expectations – I lower them ;-)
Bollwerk
yeah. . . right. . . sure. . . um-hm. . .whatever you say. . . NEXT!!!
kamilce
Certifications are the way to prove you know a lot of a technology. Anyway you have to study Systems Engineering to be good enough.
Certifications have one good thing, they are valid in the whole world, and maybe my systems engineering degree from colombia is not useful anywhere. and If I am certified I can get a job in another country more easy. Anyway years of experience gives more credits.
Leon Huang
I agree that Trascender practice exams are good enough to pass the mcsd exams and there are areas that you just memorize to pass the exams and never use in real life but at the same time it touches a broad range of subjects and possibilities available from the technology which can enhance your design and architecture skills...
I am a big fan of certifications and as a consultant if you have them then there is no need to prove yourself to anyone (client etc.) and you are in a much better position while negotiating your wages etc. since that part is done before you start on an assignment, job etc...
Fil
Harpreet,
I think your point is what too many people believe, that once certified you no longer have to prove yourself, or at least the fact that you don't have real world experience should be excused during the interview process. And for too many companies that holds true, because they want the certified individuals on board to count towards their partnership program. Experience is overlooked.
Which is fine when you need lower level developers. I think Jerry summed it up quite well here.
aburstein
Blair - you are talking sense here. It doesnt matter how many Cisco, Microsoft and other company qualifications you have - if you are going into an industry that is based around technologies that have a mathematical basis then some form of educational qualifications are a good start.
When I left school in the UK I left with a handful of basic qualifications - I had enough to get a job as my only interests at the time were earning enough to have a few beers and a good time. Within a few years the computing bug hit - late seventies - and I decided I needed to change direction.
I tried courses from people like Computeach in the UK - at the time there were no MCSE etc I found it difficult to understand the concepts as a piece of my education was missing. So what I did was to get myself a degree in mathematics and computing science. The penny dropped when i was studying for my degree as i actually did courses around the mathematical functions underpinning coding/logic.
This formal education gave me the grounding you talk about. It was the spring board for my career in computing.
I then worked through a career structure in government computing and now the private sector going through systems engineering disciplines from support, programming, analysis, design and now architetcure at the infrastructure, application, information and enterprise levels. I dont think I could have done this without the education I had - and by the way - I got my degree through home study with the UK's Open University - moving house several times and having a couple of kids on the way. Its hard but rewarding and your are not too old or young to start that way.
This said - my nephew has just spent thousands of pounds of a loan getting his MCSE and his Cisco engineering qualifications - unfortunately he doesnt have previous IT experience and he doesnt have a degree. He worked dam hard to take these and pass them, in particular the Cisco. However, no degree meant in a lot of job trawls his CV didnt get through the first cut. Even more so - no IT work experience meant he couldnt get major employment to put these into practise. Fortunately an ISP has employed him - at 26yrs old - on their help desk so he can start to build up a CV. To keep his IT skills up to date he has build his own infrastructure environment at home - helps to keep practising so you can replay real world problems and scenarios in interviews.
So I actually think you have a combination of factors:
I can say that I have had feedback from the Microsoft Architectural qualifications programme as our company have had an involvement in this and you do need the real world experience. I personally would give it a few years to settle down in the Microsoft field. Microsoft have never been big in architecture, they are only just building up their expertise - in the past thats where their partners excelled for them. However Major Corporations now want to engage with people who understand architecture - not product specialists or sales people - who were the normal class of Microsoft person.
We are looking beyond what Microsoft are doing and have been looking at courses endorsed by the BCS ( British Computer Society ) and the ISEB. Consultancy qualifications here to supplement architectural knowledge require you to have extensive industry knowledge and experience and you need company sponsorship to take the courses and exams. This stops the kids out of college syndrome. It also means clients engaging with you when you list people on your books with these types of letters after their name they know they have the practical knowledge and have not got the letters from reading in a book or using exam cram techniques.
Hope the above helps the debate.
Eddie
jeveret